


Self Control

by amazinglyhorribleegg



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Anorexia, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Bulimia, Character Study, Control, Control Issues, Crushes, Crying, Crying Mycroft Holmes, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Drug Addict Sherlock, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt, Fainting, Greg Lestrade is a Good Friend, Hurt Mycroft Holmes, Hurt No Comfort, I'm Sorry, Implied Sexual Content, Kid Sherlock Holmes, Lonely Mycroft Holmes, Loss of Control, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Original Character(s), POV Mycroft Holmes, Pizza, Purging, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sad, Sad Ending, Seizures, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sexual Assault, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Triggers, University, Unrequited Crush, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 10:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19665265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazinglyhorribleegg/pseuds/amazinglyhorribleegg
Summary: His entire life he had been looking for it - for a way to silence his thoughts; a way to hold time in his fingertips and know that everything was going to be okay.He finally found what he was so desperately looking for in nothing more than his own body-=-A character study following Mycroft growing up with anorexia and bulimiaPlease heed the trigger warnings in the notes at the beginning





	Self Control

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING!  
> \- Eating disorders (Anorexia, bulimia)  
> \- binging, purging and restricting  
> \- drug abuse  
> \- sexual assault  
> \- date rape drugs  
> \- self harm  
> \- vomiting
> 
> This doesn't have a happy ending. Practice self care!

Mycroft lacked control.

His entire life he had been looking for it - for a way to silence his thoughts; a way to hold time in his fingertips and know that everything was going to be okay. He struggled, watching the East Wind wreak havoc in her path, raging and blaring and ruining everything that dares get too close. He watched his house reduce to ash along with his childhood, the shivering flames lapping at the twilight sky, burning everything he held dear. He watched in horror as Sherlock followed the East Wind's footsteps, breaking the mold and disobeying at any cost, a brilliant mind and ferocious heart, channeling whatever he couldn't make into words into beautiful notes on a Stradivarius, bringing to light all the emotions too poetic for the English language to convey. Mycroft could only cover his ears and hope the notes told a story of good and not of evil.

He struggled. Uncle Rudy knelt to his height and made him keep a secret and he wasn't in control. Mummy wept and Father argued and he wasn't in control. Sherlock ran away to a drug den at sixteen and he wasn't in control, was never in control.

He finally found what he was so desperately looking for in nothing more than his own body. He was the authority of his self, a small world surrounded by chaos, turning and working all for his mind's content. It was something he couldn't be separated from, something others couldn't rip from his hands like everything else he attempted to hold on to.

He was in university. The world spun and his grades were high and yet he couldn't control it. He lived with others who didn't clean the dishes, who didn't follow Mycroft's schedule. People who went out at strange times and came home most nights but sometimes not at all and Mycroft couldn't control it. He phoned his brother and listened to it ring endlessly and he couldn't control it. But he could control his body.

His roommates brought home pizza one night and ate to their hearts content. They stuffed their faces and wiped their greasy hands on their shirts and it was vile. They weren't aware of what they were doing, or what they had eaten. Mycroft was. He didn't dare take a bite. He knew it smelt good, but he trained his mind to think otherwise, told himself that he was above all those feelings.

He starved himself to feel the hunger pains, to feel the empty hole in his stomach and to know he was stronger than them. He had more willpower, more self-control. Calories were kept in a leather notebook and he read them to encourage himself to cut out another meal when he was feeling weak.

Whenever he came home he was showered with compliments and knowledge that people truly did appreciate his hard work. At school he stayed a shadow, letting others pass by him without a glance, but at home he was the center of attention. He was told how good he looked, how they were proud of him for taking care of himself. His mother joked about him losing his baby fat and his brother mocked his clothing sizes and he took it in stride, allowing himself to know that he was powerful, that he was superior to the others.

Until the night of the party.

He was twenty-four years old. University balanced with his calorie intake beautifully, keeping him occupied at every point in his journey. He was excelling at his work, both school and private, raising his grades and lowering the numbers on the scale until he was finally a healthy weight, and then a little more.

It was his roommate that suggested they go to a house party that evening. Excuses danced on his lips but he looked Benjamin in the eyes and suddenly Mycroft wanted something differenton his lips. He had learned to disregard most emotions from past personal losses, yet love was something that Mycroft had yet to experience until that day. It was his dimpled cheeks and warming blue eyes that caused Mycroft to find himself abandoned at a party just hours later.

Music pounded, voices shrieked, bodies moved and shoved and it was everything except alright. Anxiety seeped into Mycroft's bones as he found himself lacking the ability to leave. He poured himself a drink, hoping to mask his fear until he could find his friend through the crowds and ask to put the night behind them.

He found Benjamin at a table with Jell-O shooters, and before Mycroft could speak solo cups were being shoved into his hands. Stronger ones, ones that went down rough and made his head foggy.

"Take my keys! You know what my car looks like!" Benjamin had hollered when Mycroft asked for a ride. He took them without much choice, holding them in his hands for a moment as he came to the realization that he was too intoxicated to drive. With that revelation came the soul-crushing thought of the calories within the nameless solo cups he had been downing all night.

he was jarred out of his thoughts, and suddenly everything was too loud. He wanted to scream, wanted to shut everyone up until it was silence, beautiful silence and he could recall exactly how much he drank.

Benjamin was putting another shooter in his hand and Mycroft couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. He downed the drink and raced to the bathroom, terrified by his lack of motor controls.

Behind closed doors Mycroft felt himself unravel. He wasn't sure of anything around him and it was absolutely terrifying. How long was he at the party? How much did he drink? How many calories did he have? When could he get home? He needed to be sober, he needed to lose the calories, he needed to get everything to stop, just for one moment.

He put his fingers down his throat and leaned over the toilet, a few minutes of gagging rewarding him as he retched painfully. His fell in a heap on the tiled floor. His throat hurt, his mouth tasted of bile, his face was too hot, his eyes and nose were running. But he was empty, he didn't have the drinks in him anymore. And for a short moment he could think. Everything was clear. He was floating above the party, above the noise, above the people. He was powerful.

The door unlocked - didn't he lock it? And Benjamin came in. The door closed behind him and blocked out the static noise of the ignorant party-goers.

"Hey, Mycroft. I heard you being sick in here. Y'alright?" His voice was calm and worried, and it made Mycroft's heart flutter. He knelt down to Mycroft's level and started unbuttoning his shirt with gentle movements. "Let's get this off you, yeah? It's pretty hot in here,"

The night was a blur. He was alright, then he wasn't. Everything was tingling and fuzzy and spinning and it really felt like more than just alcohol. There were hands on him and voices echoing but he didn't care. He could feel himself slip away into something quiet, something soothing. There were alarms ringing in his head but he didn't move, couldn't move. He let the waves wash over him and soon enough he had fallen into unconsciousness.

He woke up in the morning with a cotton mouth and a pounding head, the party died down to carpet stains and hang-overs. His own voice felt unfamiliar when he groaned, rubbing his head and blinking at his surroundings. He moved to pull up his pants and was met with something cold and sticky and absolutely wrong. Dread overfilled his chest as the entire night came flooding back to him.

He threw up again, painful and dark and _evil_ pouring out of his mouth with every dry heave.

Everything spiraled. He locked himself in his room and missed his classes, unable to face the world with the shame eating away at his gut. He starved himself more and more, hoping the clenching feeling in his stomach would erase the glossy memories that night brought with it. Benjamin didn't speak to him, acted like the corrupted party was nothing more than a bad dream he was forever oblivious to. It took two weeks, but when Mycroft finally came out of his cage he was a force to be reckoned with. The dead of night smothered him like a blanket as he read the pizza menu off into the phone in hand. He was hungry. And he was going to eat. He deserved it, he needed it. His body needed sustenance and his body needed comfort, it needed an escape.

One by one he ate all the slices of pizza, downing them with glasses of milk. He ate and ate, feeling himself strong and superior and deserving of every pleasure this world had to offer. He didn't care, nothing outside the kitchen mattered, all that was important was the food and his mouth.

When he was done he looked in the bathroom mirror. A despised, lonely man with fat rolling down his neck, his cheeks, his arms, his thighs. A stained sweatshirt and sleeping pants to cover his disgusting frame. The food churned in his gut, overfilling him. Pure hatred for himself pulsed with every second he stared. It was when he vomited that he felt peace. He took his own body by the neck and shoved it against the wall, reminding it of who was in control. The mind above the body, strength over temptation. Telling it what went down and what stayed on the plate, what stayed and what left. His body, his rules, his life.

He was empty. He was strong. He was in control.

He never really recovered. He graduated and came back home to find Sherlock wandering the streets in a cocaine-fueled high. Without hesitation he picked up his brother and took him home to a one bedroom flat, the cheapest one he could get his hands on, and that's where they stayed. They lived from paycheck to paycheck, Mycroft sporting a nice job in cheap government work and Sherlock struggling to find a place to fit in, struggling to find a home. Mycroft bought foods and gave the dinners to Sherlock, told Sherlock he'd clean the dishes at night and then eat everything left over, hunger pounding through his veins, moving his muscles without any thought process.

Every time he vomited it got easier. He became silent at the act, and found no need to wait until Sherlock was asleep to hide his catharsis. Every night when his brother retired to his room he would stuff his face, feeling himself deserving of every luxury, every morsel of comfort he could get his hands on. He would run to the bathroom, turn on the tap, take one look at his disgusting body and puke in the same minute, fingers down his throat for only a moment. The control was lacking, it was dripping from in between his fingertips, but it was there. It was all he craved.

Sherlock eventually caught the attention of a police force in a positive way, something Mycroft never could have imagined, and soon enough he was getting knocks on the door to find a Detective Inspector bringing his brother home, talking about how smart the boy was, how he solved yet another case. The inspector did what Mycroft failed to do. He gave Sherlock a home, a place where he was happy, and he could be himself and learn to control his urges. Their house was not home, it was hell. It was a place where Sherlock suffered through withdrawals, yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs and collapsing on the ground in convulsions. It was a place where Mycroft's ghost haunted, holding his brother close and letting tears fall only when he was sure not even the roaches would hear him.

Mycroft climbed up the ranks of the government, charming himself through the tests thrown at him. He got enough money to feed them both three full meals, although with his brother basically living under another persons roof Mycroft had quite a bit of food to himself. Soon he found himself working in a small office. Before he could secure a spot he was only a step lower than the Prime Minister, his intelligence and deductions putting him into a state of omniscience. He did anything and everything, and had control of the world. He moved into a new home, one where the demons laid in unused rooms instead of crowded hallways, one where nothing echoed except his quiet footsteps and the hopes that Sherlock would one day use the guest room. He bought the best security and fell into a world of paperwork and meetings.

He had control over his life. He chose his working hours and chose his employees. He could watch any corner of the world, marking down every action of others and making deductions from wrong and right. He scanned through paperwork methodically and followed every street of London, memorizing the world around him. His offices were pristine, his suits were impeccable. People looked at him and felt power radiating. They didn't see the fat child with a wayward brother, they didn't see the shell of a man in the corner of a strangers restroom, desheivled and ruined. They saw power. They saw control. They saw authority. They saw strength over temptation and complete knowledge that breached anyone else.

They saw a mask.

Every night when Mycroft went home he was face-to-face with himself, with what he truly was. He was a scared boy in a big world, wishing for a better childhood. He was an anxious teen with a deep secret he kept locked away inside the ruins of his mind. He was the man with ruined pride and an empty crevasse where he ripped out his heart in favour of his armour.

He had no control over his life, it was all a façade.

There were days spent fasting, not letting a single thing past his lips. He ran on his treadmill until he felt dizzy and spots grew in his vision. He bought himself gum and his body believed he was eating and he threw it up. His eyes were hollow and his body was pained, stretching around his skeleton and attempting to break away from itself. His fridge was empty, and he looked in it with an even more empty stare, praying that one day the euphoria that was there in the beginning would come back. He took a blade to his thighs and wondered if he could bleed the pounds out of him, drop by drop. The gun in his hand was like a well-known stranger, heavy and mysterious yet never a threat. He never let his finger drift to the trigger.

There were nights spent eating. Ordering food fit for a family of seven and not sparing a glance at it. Shoveling food into his mouth as fast as his body would let him, not thinking about the consequences, knowing that whatever happened next could be controlled. He ate and ate until he started to gag, and he ran to the bathroom to throw it all up. Once, twice, three times he would go. Back and forth, back and forth. he did it until it hurt too much, and then did it once more for good measure. There would be blood in his vomit but he didn't care, he just craved the control that was just out of reach.

He would take time off work the next day, downing handfuls of laxatives to rid himself of what he couldn't purge. His stomach growled and squelched and Mycroft almost wished he would topple over dead, but the thought of leaving his brother sent fear down his spine. His weight fluctuated and he pretended he knew why. He pretended he chose to do what he did.

He was too afraid to face the truth.

Doctor Watson entered in and Mycroft wondered why he was still around.

Sherlock didn't need his help anymore. He had his friends, he had a life. He had found peace. Is peace even possible?

Mycroft never had peace. Mycroft lived in torture, forced to follow a life with no emergency brakes. He found his control in food and weight, obeying his internal rules religiously. Sherlock found his control in his life, balancing cases and friends and ultimately ending the day with a sense of happiness. Was Mycroft happy?

He crossed his legs to feel the burn of the cuts on his thigh. No, he wasn't. But there was no turning around, no going back. He needed the control, he held to it like a lifeline.

It was supposed to be a fasting day. Every day was a fasting day, truly, but he had come to the realization that not everything good can stay that way. Binges happened within the confinements of his own home, away from the cameras and unexpected meetings and personal assistants that knocked very quietly. It was good. But not everything good can stay that way forever.

There was a gift from a government official he talked to the day before - a basket of goodies and treats. It was such a small gesture that triggered everything. He told Anthea he was taking the next hour and a half off, and told her that nobody was allowed in his office. He ordered a (few) meals from the take-out restaurant nearby and with a check to make sure there was no important meetings, he binged. Everything in front of him, nothing was safe. it didn't matter if he liked the food or not. He just needed to eat.

It was the weighing knowledge that he lost control to the point where he ate _during work_ that made him nauseous. He came to the conclusion that he needed it out right then. Every bit of it. Taking work off to take laxatives wasn't an option - he didn't deserve the easy way out. He could feel his body taking in calories and fats and had the compulsion to hurt himself - his body was betraying him. He ran to his office toilet and purged, the half-chewed foods getting stuck on the way up. He purged and drank a bottle of water before purging again, needing to know he let it all out. Flushing, he barely remembered the term, wasn't something he did often. But he needed it. He was out of control, the world was falling apart, breaking at the edges. He was back in the tiled bathroom in the party, unmoving and unable to scream as his body was taken advantage of. He purged until his vomit was clear, until blood danced in his bile and the back of his throat held a metallic aftertaste.

He struggled to breath afterwards, flushing everything weakly. His hands were shaking violently, his arms almost too weak to move. It was terrifying, it reminded him once again that his body was not his own. He tried to stand up in hopes of getting a drink to regain his electrolyte levels, but his head pulsed heavily and spots filled his vision rapidly. The world swam and he fell to the ground.

Waking up was painful. There was a strong throb in the back of his head, making him wince. He was on the bathroom floor still, laying in a puddle of his own piss. He wrinkled his nose and attempted to sit up against the wall, looking down at himself. Things were cut out of his memory, faded thoughts and ideas only half-finished. There was something wrong, he knew. His entire body was trembling uncontrollably, he was freezing, a cold sweat. He was exhausted, tired to the bone. His mind struggled to pull up observations, and tying them together was hard. Eventually he came to a semi-sure conclusion that he had experienced a seizure.

Looking for his phone, he realized it was back on the table of his office. He didn't want to call Anthea, that was for sure. Sherlock was a no-go, but maybe he could call his personal doctor. He needed something - he needed everything. He really, really wanted a nap.

After a good ten minutes of breathing, he finally decided it time to stand up. Grabbing onto the counter, he made his way into a standing position slowly, stopping every time the world seemed to sway behind his eyes. He kept his hand on the counter as he walked across the bathroom, but when he moved his hand to the door he fell for a second time, toppling over onto himself.

He hissed as pain went up his leg. Probably a bruise, he thought, nothing too serious. It took him very long to come up with an understandable thought.

But now he was trapped. He couldn't get back up, he could tell. His entire body was shaking near convulsions, his crotch was cold with urine and he couldn't get up, couldn't call someone.

He bit his lip roughly and felt his face heat up. Nobody would be looking for him, nobody would care.

He cursed himself for crying and curled himself into the fetal position, his entire body tense and aching and ruined. He waited for the tremors to stop, waited until he could go home and go back to counting calories and exercising.

He waited to be in control.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> I have no experience with eating disorders or sexual assault, but I did attempt to do my research. That being said, if you find anything offencive or extremely off, please let me know!  
> Also let me know if you need anything tagged. Stay safe and practice self care <3


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